


Сердце не камень (The Heart is Not a Stone)

by Fringuello



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - SCP Foundation, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Episode: s03e05 Razgovor, Gen, Not the complete episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-08-04 12:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16347008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fringuello/pseuds/Fringuello
Summary: Sameen Shaw tries to save Genrika Zhirova, and determine why she is in danger.  (Despite the Russian title, this story is in English.)





	Сердце не камень (The Heart is Not a Stone)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Take Care of the Unseen Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16156940) by [Zaniida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/pseuds/Zaniida). 



Catching her breath, Gen stood near the concrete wall of the dim, sub-basement, warily eyeing the small, dark woman who stood at the corner of the hallway. Although the woman had just rescued her from the men who had tried to grab her, Gen still had doubts as to whether she was trustworthy. Upon arrival at the girl’s apartment, the woman had identified herself as “Agent Stone” from Immigration and Customs, but it was obvious that she was not from the government—or, at least, not _that_ branch of the government. Gen was certain that “Stone” was fake too, but she had to admit that the name certainly described the woman perfectly. Something was not quite right about her; even while shooting at the men who’d been pursuing Gen, Stone had stood as still as her namesake.

Stone turned toward Gen. “Do you know who those men were, or why they tried to grab you?” She turned her head back to check the hallway again.

“Probably because I’m a spy,” stated Gen, matter-of-factly.

Turning back, the woman gave Gen another look, conveying no expression at all. “She doesn’t know,” she said, dismissively. So this woman was in contact with someone, probably a handler. Interesting. Did that mean that she was actually a spy too? And if so, why was she interested in Gen?

“All right. We’ll meet John at the northeast cor—” Evidently Stone had been cut off mid-sentence. Gen wished she could have heard what the handler was saying; the woman was clearly unhappy about what she was being told to do. While Stone was distracted, the girl slowly advanced toward her, intending to test out a theory.

“Sir, yes, sir,” Stone said, with a heavy dose of sarcasm, at what was evidently the close of the conversation. Gen reached out to poke her on the shoulder. No, theory disproved. That was definitely the warmth of human flesh.

The moment Gen made physical contact, Stone quickly turned back in her direction. “I thought you might be a robot,” the girl offered in explanation.

The woman sighed, then moved over and sat down, indicating that Gen should do the same. The girl lowered herself to the floor, leaning back against the black cement block wall. Pulling her knees to her chest, she studied the small woman, who busied herself removing the magazine from her gun, and bullets from her pocket.

“What’s your name?” Gen asked.

“Not important,” the woman replied, loading the bullets in the empty chambers of the magazine, and placing it back in her weapon.

“Well, who are you? Why are you here? How’d you know I was going to be in trouble?”

The woman leaned her head back against the wall, ignoring the girl’s questions. “How’s it going, John?”

John. This was a different person than the one Stone had been talking to earlier. Maybe John was the man who had taken on the gang members at the car and allowed Gen to escape. “Who’s John?” Stone puffed out her cheeks for a moment and closed her eyes—the first real reaction that Gen had managed to score. “Is he your friend?” No response. Gen decided to push the interrogation one step further, into what she thought—hoped—would be viewed as an annoying question. “Is he your boyfriend?”

“No, replied the woman, flatly, staring up toward the ceiling. “He’s a coworker.”

“Coworker,” said Gen, thoughtfully. “So this is your job?” Finally—a piece of information. “What are you? Like, spec ops or something?” When Stone shot her a sideways look, Gen realized with a surge of triumph that she must have hit upon something close to the truth. “Oh, man!” she exclaimed with glee. “What agency do you work for? CIA? NSA? INSCOM?” The woman remained silent. With curiosity, Gen asked “Why would a big agency like that care what happens to me?”

“We’re not a big agency,” Stone finally replied. 

Okay. Gen moved to the logical next question. “Why would a _small_ agency care what happens to me?”

The woman sighed in frustration. “We’re not . . any . . . agency. We’re just a . . . I don’t . . . even know what we are. To be honest, I’m only in it for the dog.”

Gen beamed with delight. “You guys have a dog?”

Helplessly, the woman dropped her head forward, when the two of them suddenly heard the sound of men’s voices nearing their location. “Shh!” said Stone, finger to her lips. She pulled the magazine from her gun and held it out toward the hallway as the voices continued, using its shiny surface as a mirror. “I got eyes on two tangos, Finch,” the woman whispered to her handler. “I’m taking ’em out.” As she listened to Finch’s response, her jaw clenched. Clearly, she wasn’t getting the answer that she wanted.

Stone stood up, indicating that Gen should do the same. “All right. Come on.” The two of them started moving slowly down the hallway.

“There they are!” shouted one of the men.

Gun at the ready, the woman grabbed Gen’s hand. “Run!”

The two of them quickly rounded two corners, but the men rushed after them; it was clear that they couldn’t outrun their pursuers’s weapons. Gen was obviously in deep trouble, but the woman seemed to be doing everything she could to protect her from the men who were trying to grab her. Time for the two of them to hide in Gen’s secret spot.

She pulled Stone off to the side, urging “This way!” Halting at a wooden grate, she swung it open to reveal a tunnel. Once Stone had passed through the entrance, Gen pulled the grate shut behind them.

The two of them moved along the tunnel at a crouch, passing water pipes and air ducts. Eventually, the tunnel gave way to a small open space in the center of the building’s west wing. That space extended above them to the top of the building. A wooden ladder was built right into the wall, and there appeared to be a small wooden ledge running around the walls at the level of each floor.

Quickly but quietly, Gen climbed the ladder; Stone noiselessly followed right behind her. The girl stopped at the ledge that corresponded with the first floor of the building, and moved carefully to her left until she reached a spot where two cardboard boxes were stacked. Atop these boxes, three cell phones sat on one side, and a single cell phone on the other. In the middle stood a lantern, which Gen turned on, providing dim lighting in the dark space. “It’s okay,” she said to Stone, who was carefully looking all around her, to ensure that there were no threats. “I’m in here all the time. My spying station. We should be safe here.”

“Spying station?” Stone asked skeptically.

Gen shrugged. “Told you I was a spy.”

“Who are you spying _on_?” asked Stone.

Nodding at the nearby wall, the girl replied, “The Bosstown gang. A few months back, they started showing up in the building a lot. They’re using a room just on the other side of this wall.”

Stone gave Gen a penetrating look. “ _How_ do you spy on them?”

“Like this,” Gen replied. Stepping up to the wall, she placed her hands flat on its surface and concentrated. A moment later, a soft green glow enveloped her hands. The girl remained still for about fifteen seconds, then pulled away from the wall. “Nothing’s going on right now.”

Stone took a step to the side and tapped her earpiece. “Finch. I think I might have an idea what this is all about. She’s been spying on the Bosstown gang’s operations in the building. She’s got a power that lets her see through walls to a room where the gang’s operating. It looks like someone found out what she was up to.” She stood still for a moment, listening to her handler’s reply, then looked back at the girl.

“What exactly is it that you’ve been seeing through that wall?”

“They’re changing people’s faces.” At Stone’s blank expression, Gen stepped over to the boxes and picked up the single cell phone. She turned it on, pushed a few buttons, and handed it to Stone. “Watch this.”

Stone looked at the screen and saw a close-up of Gen, before the recording zoomed in on the girl’s eyes, spun, and switched to a view of two men standing in a bathroom. The tall, burly man near the door, who was clearly the gang member running the show, demanded “Have you got the money?” of the second, older man, a small and slender pale-skinned redhead.

The man nodded, took a large, thick envelope out of the canvas bag he was holding, and handed it over.

“Then lucky you, you get to have a new face. One that the FBI isn’t on the lookout for.”

“Can we just get this over with?” asked the client, looking extremely nervous.

The tall man smiled blandly. “My, we’re impatient. Do you have the photo?” The client reached back into his bag, and pulled out a large photo of a swarthy man with dark, curly hair and a generous mustache. “Going for an Italian look?” said the tall man, with a grin and an unpleasant chuckle. The other man bit his lip and looked away.

“Get in the tub,” the tall man said, pointing the way. “I’ve already filled it.”

“What?” sputtered the client, in disbelief.

“That’s the way it works.” He stood there, waiting, until the client reluctantly stepped into the deep tub and sat down. “Now, hold the photo to your chest, take a big breath, and lie down so you’re completely covered by the water.”

“I’m not going to do that!”

The tall man shrugged. “Suit yourself. Of course, you’re going to look pretty silly if you change the skin color of your body, but you’re still a pasty-faced redhead.”

The client tightened his lips in anger, but pulled the photo against his chest, sucked in a deep breath, plugged his nose, screwed his eyes shut, and submerged himself. In a moment, the water in the tub began to bubble, as if it were boiling; a few seconds later, the bubbles erupted into a rainbow of sparkling colors. The tall man stood there, waiting and watching, for about twenty seconds, until his client burst from the water, gasping for breath.

The tall man then extended his hand and helped his client to stand up and step out of the tub. The photograph had disappeared, the likeness it carried having been transferred to the man who had been holding it. While nothing had changed about the size or shape of the man’s body, his skin color, hair, and facial features were completely transformed.

The tall man grabbed a towel and tossed it to the client, then motioned at the mirror. The client stepped forward, his mouth agape, regarding his altered image with astonishment. He placed one hand to the mirror’s surface and the other to his cheek, as if he needed the physical contact to confirm that the transformation was real.

As Stone watched, the recording spun again, and zoomed out to the initial view of Gen’s face once again before the screen went black.

Stone frowned. “So . . . you’ve recorded this kind of thing a lot of times.”

Gen nodded. “I don’t know how much it’s happening while I’m at school, but I’ve seen them bring people into this room at least two or three times a week.”

Stone turned away again. “Finch, I’ve got some info that the Foundation just might be interested in. The gang is using a special bathtub to change the physical appearance of their clients. They’re selling the service to wanted criminals.” She paused to listen to Finch’s response. “I’m guessing there might be some kind of shielding around here that has kept the Foundation from detecting anything, but when the recordings on Gen’s phones get out there, they’ll have all the evidence they need to track down the activity to this building, the gang, and her.” She paused again. “I don’t know. I’ll see if I can figure it out.”

Turning back toward Gen, Stone looked thoughtful. “Did it ever occur to you that making these recordings might have been a really bad idea?”

“I was just trying to get the criminals out of my building,” Gen replied, a bit miffed that Stone didn’t seem to recognize the value of her mission.

“Did you give the phones to anyone?”

“Not yet. I need a new phone each time; if I try to record another memory on the same phone, it wipes out the first one. And I can only afford to buy a few phones at a time.” Gen paused. “I was waiting till I had enough recordings that the evidence was too much to ignore.”

“Yeah, they’re not ignoring you, kid.”

“Well, I know that now,” Gen replied, with some irritation.

“The question is, how do they know that you’re spying on them?”

Gen shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Can you show me how you record your memories?” asked Stone.

Gen nodded, picking up another one of the phones, turning it on, and grasping it with both hands. Once again, a look of tight concentration came over her face, and a green glow surrounded her hands. After about thirty seconds, she looked up. “There it is.”

Stone reached for the phone, but stopped when her own phone beeped. Pulling it out, she glanced at in surprise, then pushed a button. After a moment, she handed it to the girl. The girl looked at the phone; startled to see the recording that was playing, she looked at Stone in confusion.

“Is that the recording you just put on your phone?” Stone asked. Gen nodded. “Did you know you could record on a phone that’s turned on, even if you aren’t touching it?”

“No,” Gen shook her head. “But I make my recordings right here, so there isn’t anybody else around.”

“Did you ever make a recording somewhere else?”

The girl stopped, searching her memory. “Once. I couldn’t record what I saw right away, because Vadim was expecting me back at the apartment. When I got there, he was paying off his dealer. I thought I’d better record it as soon as possible, but I didn’t want to do it in the apartment while both of them were there, so I stepped out in the hallway.” Stone raised her eyebrows. “But I looked!” Gen insisted. “I made sure no one was around when I did it!”

“Maybe they were just behind a nearby closed door,” Stone suggested. “It might have ended up on the dealer’s phone. That’s probably how they found out about you.”

Realizing her mistake, Gen nodded, a glum look on her face.

“How long have you been spying on them?” Stone asked.

“About four months.”

“So where are all the phones that you used to record what you saw?”

“Somewhere safe,” Gen replied, vaguely, not quite certain she was ready to turn over her evidence.

“Hey.” Stone waited until Gen turned to look at her before saying anything more. “I’m a spy too, remember?” Gen bit her lip, considering her situation. “Don’t you think that maybe you’ve gotten caught up in something that’s too big for you to handle on your own?” Stone continued.

Gen looked at the woman. Yes. She definitely needed help. Stone had already helped her escape, and now she was offering further assistance; time to come clean. “I figured it was a good idea to split them up, so I hid them inside payphones around the neighborhood.”

“Getting locations on the cell phones, Finch,” Stone relayed to her handler. “She’s hidden them inside payphones. You’re gonna wanna write this down.” She handed her phone to Gen, nodding at her to run through the list of locations.

Putting the phone to her ear, Gen took a deep breath. “One is in front of my school, P.S. 28. One’s right by the basketball courts at Echo Park. There’s another one at Mt. Hope and Monroe. And one near Topping and 175th, and the last one’s just a block away at Cleopatra Playground.”

“Thank you, Ms. Zhirova,” replied a man’s voice, addressing Gen more politely than anyone had ever spoken to her before in her entire life. A bit bemused, Gen said “Sure,” and then held the phone out to Stone.

Stone pulled the phone back to her ear. “Yes, that’s right. Five different locations. Can you find them all? In time, I mean.” She paused, waiting for a reply. “Okay. John better get here soon. I don’t want to keep hiding out in this same spot.” She paused again. “Yes, I know.” Stone turned back to Gen. “We have to sit tight for a little longer, but we’d better go back downstairs so we’re closer to the exit.”

The two of them climbed back down the ladder. Gen quickly took a seat on the floor; after a few moments spent checking all corners of the room for any threats, Stone joined her. Gen kept looking over at the woman, but it didn’t seem that Stone had any interest in pursuing a conversation, so the two sat in silence.

Suddenly, gunfire broke out nearby, and Gen flinched. She couldn’t help herself, continuing to react to each of the subsequent shots, eyes wide with fear. Stone, however, remained as still as her name.

The woman looked closely at Gen. “You all right?”

“I’m fine.”

After a moment, the woman said simply, “I’m Shaw.”

Gen focused tightly on the woman’s eyes. Yes, it looked like she was telling the truth this time. “Nice to meet you,” she replied.

“How’d you get your powers to spy through the wall, and record what you see?”

“From my grandfather. He was in the KGB. They asked for volunteers for some experiment . . . said it would help the motherland.” Gen smiled, a look of pride on her face. “When it was over, he found out he’d developed special powers that he used as a spy for the KGB. Back then, he recorded the memories on tape recorders.” Gen’s smile turned wistful, remembering all of the exciting tales that Dedushka had told her.

“So how did _you_ wind up with powers?” Shaw pressed.

“My grandfather said that when my mom was a little girl, he realized that she had the powers too, so he figured he must have passed them on to her somehow. But by the time she was a teenager, she had decided she didn’t want to use them. My grandfather said he thought that was probably for the best.”

“I was about four when I realized I could touch walls and see through them. When my mother saw me, she got angry—incredibly angry. She had never really yelled at me before, but that day, she screamed, and her face got all red.” Reliving the traumatic moment, Gen tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “She scared me, and I ran to my room and started crying. By the time she followed me into my room, she’d calmed down, and she just held me until I wasn’t afraid any more. But she told me that I must never do it again.”

The girl paused. “She never told me she had the same power. And probably nothing would have ever happened if I’d stayed in Russia. But then my mother was arrested, so I was sent to live with the only relative we’d had any contact with, my grandfather. He figured out that I had the same powers that he did, so he taught me how to use them. He gave me this too.” Gen opened her jacket to show Shaw the medal pinned inside her lapel.

“Order of Lenin.” Shaw sounded mildly impressed.

“I wear it everywhere I go.”

“You should sell it,” Shaw stated, without inflection. “Probably worth a lot of money.”

Puzzled, Gen cocked her head to look at the woman. “What’s wrong with you? I mean, why are you . . . like this?”

Shaw looked down and took a breath. “You know that thing that made you flinch?” She shook her head. “I don’t get that.”

“You don’t get scared?”

“Or sad. Or happy or lonely.” Shaw shrugged. “I do angry okay, but . . . that’s about it.”

“Did something happen?”

Shaw’s eyes narrowed, and she nodded, slowly. “I was, uh . . . about your age. My father and I were coming home from the movies. _Addams Family Values_ —he got me into the theater even though I was too young for a PG-13 movie, because he’d loved watching reruns of the old TV show as a kid, and he knew we had the same weird sense of humor.” For a moment, Shaw appeared lost in her memories; her expression didn’t quite merit description as a smile, though it came close.

“Something happened while we were on the highway,” Shaw eventually continued. “My father lost control of the car, and it flipped over. I was a little bruised, but not badly hurt. I called out to him, but he just lay there, like he was asleep.”

Shaw remained silent for a few moments, closing her eyes. “I must have been really scared, probably screaming or crying, but . . . I’m just not sure. When I try to remember those feelings, it’s all a kind of haze.” She opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling. “I just remember that I suddenly saw this . . . monster . . . roll in through one of the broken windows. It was a round, dark blue, scaly blob at first, but then it stretched out like a snake, and it slithered toward me in the car. Didn’t have a face, or even a head, really, but then it suddenly opened up this huge, gaping mouth.” She paused again, apparently struggling to remember. “I must have been screaming, because my mouth was wide open. Next thing I knew, it had clamped its jaw onto my mouth . . . it’s like all my fear got sucked right out of me . . . along with everything else. I was being emptied out. I could barely breathe, and I just felt myself going numb.”

Gen sat silent, transfixed by Shaw’s tale.

“Then the emergency vehicles arrived, sirens blaring. Maybe the sirens scared the monster off; maybe it was just full. I don’t know. But it let me go, slithered back to the window, then gathered itself into a ball again and rolled away before the rescue squad arrived at the car.” She shrugged. “Maybe it didn’t finish the job. Maybe that’s why I can still get angry. But that’s the only emotion I have left. And when the rescue worker told me that my father was dead, I didn’t feel sad, or scared, or anything. All I could think about was how hungry I was.”

“I’m sorry.” It seemed a pale response, but, for the life of her, Gen couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Shaw, shrugging again.

Suddenly, a white mist began rapidly seeping into the open area. “What’s that?” asked Gen in alarm, even as the sweet smell filled her nostrils.

“R-22. They must have punctured the pipes for the building’s A.C.” Shaw ripped off her right sleeve and handed it to Gen. “We’ll be dizzy in ten seconds, unconscious in forty,” she continued, ripping off the other sleeve for herself.

“What happens after that?” Gen asked, holding the cloth to her face as she began to cough.

“You don’t wanna know,” Shaw replied. “Come on!”

The two of them began to scurry back through the tunnel, until they saw a figure appear in the mist in front of them. Reversing course quickly, they soon found their path blocked by a second figure. Shaw spun Gen back around; a gun fired, and the woman grunted in pain. She fired back at their assailant; at the same time, the first man grabbed hold of Gen and began dragging her away.

“Shaw! No!” Gen screamed in terror. “Shaw!” She watched, desperate, as Shaw raced toward her, hoping that the woman could manage to rescue her yet again. But a third man suddenly stepped out and dropped Shaw with a vicious kick to the head.

“No!” shouted Gen, one last time, just before losing consciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a Russian proverb, brought to my attention by Zaniida, who served as beta for the work. Her conception of POI in the SCP Foundation universe was the starting point for the story, and her suggestions were essential in its development and finishing.
> 
> I also want to credit two television show episodes, created by three writers, for providing substantial inspiration for this work:  
> “Razgovor,” a POI episode written by David Slack, from which I have borrowed liberally.  
> “The Four of Us Are Dying,” a 1960 episode of _The Twilight Zone_ , story by George Clayton Johnson, teleplay by Rod Serling.


End file.
